kriadydragon | SGA Fic - Unconditional

Title: Unconditional
Rating: G, Gen
Spoilers: none
Characters: Team, Sherbet (original critter character as seen in my stories Crash, Squaring the Circle, and Pyrotechnics).
Summary: Sheppard's home, Sherbet's POV. Some Shep-whump aftermath

A/N: I know, I know - I already posted somrthing. But Pt. 2 of Fortunate is not a long chapter, and this little story is even shorter. It's another story originally intended for a Flashfic challenge but ended up being set aside. I stumbled upon it going through my files and thought it might be a fun read for Sherbet fans.

Unconditional

They call him Sherbet. They say he is kitten-sized with a kit-fox face, big ears and a lemur's tail that always looks too long for his body. He is bright with the colors of red, orange, and yellow. “Like Sherbet ice-cream,” says the Shp'prd. Sherbet isn't normally one to play favorites, but he does like the Shp'prd and the Mac-aay the best. The Shp'prd knows the most wonderful games, like throwing sticks and balls to chase, which satiates a constant need to track and hunt tiny things. The Mac-aay provides a warm lap to sleep in and gentle hands to smooth out the fur. The Tee-la is kind but comes and goes more often than the others. The Roo-nun is, well, scary, plain and simple. A challenge, actually, and Sherbet loves a challenge. He likes to follow the Roo-nun, get the Roo-nun to chase him. Sherbet knows the Roo-nun likes it since he has yet to ever catch and hurt Sherbet.

Plus he always gives Sherbet a pat when he thinks no one is looking. Sherbet is not dumb. He knows the Roo-nun keeps all affections secret, though Sherbet does not understand why. Affections are not meant to be secret. How else does one let another know of their love, of how they are regarded to be as important as a litter-sibling?

The Wurr is the leader. Sherbet knows because people are always coming to her, especially the Shp'prd and the Mac-aay. Sherbet knew since the day he came through the water wall that the Wurr controls this pack. The Mac-aay had looked at her with an expression of begging when the Wurr had stared at Sherbet long and hard. The Shp'prd had been ill at the time. Sherbet remembered. He prides himself on his memory and how quickly he can learn. It had kept him alive when his last Protector had chased him into the wild at his age of Release, when all his kind are given up to live or die in the Unknown. She had been smaller than these Protectors who guard him now.

It had saddened him that he had not been worthy to stay with his first Protector longer. So went the ways of the world, but he would not deny being stubborn. He had tried again, and again, and again, to form a new bond with a new Protector. He had hoped for one and instead found four in the two-legs who had walked through the water-wall.

Sherbet understands the ways of the metal den with its walls that open at a touch. His timing is perfect when he passes through the water-wall after his Protectors, who do not understand that as they guard Sherbet, Sherbet must also guard them. He is a warning, an alarm, against the beasts that use stealth, silence, sometimes even illusions to catch their prey. Beasts on four legs, beasts on two, even beasts that drink the fluids of the body through mere touch. Sherbet hears them, sees them, smells them, where as the Protectors cannot when they are beyond the den. Although the Tee-la seems always aware when the pale-two-legs with their devouring hands come. It could be the ways of the females of their kind, Sherbet thinks, but he is not sure.

Sherbet loves his Protectors like litter-mates. He can always find them, always catch up to them even when they thought they had slipped away from him. They always have food for him, even those not of his Protector pack. He sleeps on a mound of softness in the den of the Shp'prd, because the Mac-aay has difficulty breathing in the mornings when Sherbet naps in his den.

But today, the Mac-aay does not mind having Sherbet in his den. Today, Sherbet had missed his Protectors going through the water-wall. He waited in the Sp'prd's den, dejected, ashamed, refusing to eat when the Wurr brought him fruit. He was not aware that they had returned until the Mac-aay comes to take Sherbet from the Shp'prd's den to his own den. The Mac-aay is very quiet, and sullen, extremely sullen. Sherbet understands beyond simple expressions. The Mac-aay's heartbeat is quieter and Sherbet smells fear on him. The Roo-nun is angry. The Tee-la sad.

The Shp'prd is not among them. This confuses Sherbet, frightens him. So he begins to search, going to the places the Shp'prd always went, following the fading scent-trails. All he gets for his troubles is lost several times, and he whines and howls until found. The Mac-aay always tries to lock him in his den, but Sherbet knows that to leap at the wall enough times is to get the smaller wall to open.

Many days pass. The Shp'prd's scent grows fainter and fainter. This terrifies Sherbet, makes him frantic in his search. He can not sit still or let himself be locked away. He barely eats, barely sleeps, can't until he finds the Shp'prd, doesn't fail the Shp'prd. He can't fail him, not again. The Shp'prd has to be out there, somewhere. Sherbet follows close to the pack when they step through the water wall into a world with places carrying the Shp'prd's fading scent. This always angers the Mac-aay but Sherbet doesn't care. He is the warning, the alarm against the beasts. He is supposed to protect his guardians as they protect him. So it has always been, and to fail... to fail means that he does not love his Protectors. And he does. He does.

On the fourth journey through the water-wall, the Mac-aay lashes out in his anger, yelling at Sherbet, then summons the water-wall to toss him back through. He is grabbed before he can return and tossed into the box with the front he can see through but not move through. When the Mac-aay returns, he is still angry. He will not stop yelling and refuses to let Sherbet out of the cage.

It is then that Sherbet knows he has failed.

More days pass, but Sherbet lets them without searching. There is no reason to search, because he is a failure, and will only fail ever more.

Then comes the day when the scent of the Shp'prd is strong in the air. Sherbet leaps at the wall until it opens, letting him escape the Mac-aay's den. He follows the scent to the den of the Bee-ket. He does not need to leap at the wall. The door opens when someone walks in, so Sherbet follows. He stops when he sees his pack speaking with the Bee-ket.

...severely malnourished, dehydrated, ill... Has no bloody idea where he is... Can't sedate him with all those drugs in his body... lacerations have led to infection... abrasions on his wrists...don't know his mental state yet...

Sherbet tilts his head curiously. Sometimes he thinks he can understand the language of the Protectors, but it is not easy, and most of it is garbled mumbling in his ears. He gives up on trying to understand and continues following the unseen trail that is the Shp'prd's smell.

Only to be suddenly grabbed from behind. He lets loose a startled yeep when his attacker lifts him into the air.

Sorry, Sherb, not yet.

Sherbet struggles. He has to find the Shp'prd. He has to know if he is all right. The Mac-aay's hold is too tight and the next thing Sherbet knows he is back in the punishment box.

He will not be deterred. He can not.

The moment he is released from the box he resumes his search that always takes him to the Bee-ket's den. He can get passed the door fine, just never whatever guard is there waiting for him: mostly the ones who share the Bee-ket's den, sometimes the Roo-nun, sometimes the Tee-la. But Sherbet never gives up. He tries again and again, day after day, until one day the Shp'prd's scent is not where it had once been. It is elsewhere, outside, on the wide ledges overlooking the great blue waters.

No one stops him when he steps out onto the windy ledge. They are too busy looking at something. They are uneasy, shifting a lot, muttering things. It is his pack, along with the Wurr and the Bee-ket.

Hasn't said a word...

No neurological damage... more catatonic... Kate says he's withdrawn to protect himself.

You said he's not aware of his surroundings?

It's why he sometimes acts violently.

What do we do if he does not come back to himself?

I won't send him away, Carson. It'll just make it worse.

Away. Sherbet knows what “away” means. Who will be sent away? Not the Shp'prd. He is back, he cannot be sent away.

They'll lock him up in a padded cell and throw away the key!

Rodney...

They will!

It'll kill him, Carson.

Sherbet moves around them to see what they are looking at. It is a mound of coverings on the chair with the round moving parts. The scent of the Shp'prd is strong. Sherbet looks back to the others who stare at the mound. They are sad. Sherbet smells tears, sees water shimmer in the eyes of the females. The Mac-aay is the most unstill, the Roo-nun too still, his jaw tight and twitching. The Bee-ket is both sad and nervous.

Sherbet looks back at the mound that smells strongly of the Shp'prd. He sees the tufts of dark strands that are the Shp'prd's head-fur. This mound is the Shp'prd. Sherbet lifts his tail in elation and looks back hoping the pthers see what he sees.

The Wurr and Bee-ket leave. The pack remains where they stand as though afraid to move.

Sherbet does not understand. The Shp'prd is before them and yet they do not smile. Then the Tee-la pulls aside the top of the coverings and Sherbet tenses. They will see his face and know.

The Shp'prd's face is very thin, sharp, as though the bones will rip through the skin. The skin itself is pale, almost white. His eyes are strange, not the eyes of the Shp'prd that are supposed to be bright like the fire-circle in the blue sky; sharp as claws. They are, instead, dull and empty, like clouds after the rain. But it is the Shp'prd's scent. Is this why the pack is sad? Because the Shp'prd is thin, his eyes empty? What does it matter? It is the Shp'prd and that is all that matters.

Sherbet bounds joyously over to his Protector and leaps into his lap. He burrows through the mound to press and rub his head in greeting against the Shp'prd's chest that his hard and lumpy from bones too close to the surface. The Shp'prd's heart beats, sounding as tired as the Shp'prd's body looks. It is as though the Shp'prd sleeps with his eyes open. Sherbet does not expect him to move, does not care either way. He is content just to have the Shp'prd back.

Something touches Sherbets' head, light, unsteady, almost uncertain. Sherbet looks up and licks at the thin fingers that descend to run lightly over his fur. Then the Shp'prd's arms close in, gathering Sherbet to him. Sherbet's head is pressed into the skeletal chest where the heartbeat thumps stronger and faster. The Shp'prd buries his face into Sherbet's fur. He smells tears and feels moisture soak into the hairs to wet his skin beneath. The Shp'prd's chest hitches and heaves as he gasps and rains water from his eyes.

Sherbet does not understand why the Shp'prd might go away, or even if he is going away. It doesn't really matter. Sherbet will go where the Shp'prd goes, where ever he goes, and be his Protector.

The End